A former developer at Rockstar has attempted to explain why Grand Theft Auto 6 is coming to PC after it hits PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S, and called on PC gamers to give the studio the “benefit of the doubt” over its controversial launch plans.
Grand Theft Auto 6 saw the release of its debut trailer last week and with it confirmation of a 2025 release date. But it’s the platforms Rockstar has listed for GTA 6 at launch, notably only PS5 and Xbox Series X and S, that sent shockwaves throughout the PC gaming community. PC gamers now face the prospect of either waiting to play GTA 6 from 2026, or perhaps beyond, or go for the famous Rockstar game double-dip and get the game on console at launch and again when it comes out on PC.
As you’d expect, PC gamers reacted with a mix of downbeat acceptance and shock at Rockstar’s plans to skip PC for GTA 6’s launch in this day and age. But speaking in a new video, Mike York, who worked as an animator at Rockstar New England for six years, helping to build GTA 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2 before leaving the company in 2017, moved to explain the potential thinking behind Rockstar’s decision.
(It’s worth noting that IGN has asked Rockstar about the lack of a PC version for the 2025 launch of GTA 6, but it hasn’t responded.)
York, who IGN has already reported on for his reaction to the GTA 6 trailer, begins by explaining why the PlayStation is, historically for Rockstar, the console of focus when it comes to its games.
“The reason why a PC port comes later and not the first thing that comes out, is because they want to prioritise what sells,” York said. “Most of the time, especially in the past, PlayStation was the big seller. PlayStation was the console to have. It sold more than any other console for the most part. Everybody’s playing PlayStation.”
York said that for GTA 5, Rockstar prioritised the PS3, and built the Xbox 360 port simultaneously, before getting to the PC version post-launch. GTA 5 launched on PS3 and Xbox 360 in September 2013 before launching on PS4 and Xbox One in November 2014, and it didn’t launch on PC until April 2015. PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S versions also launched March 2022.
Then we get to the meat of York’s argument: the nature of building a PC version of a game as complicated and vast as GTA for a huge number of potential hardware configurations, and the sheer amount of testing that has to be done to ensure a quality launch. This, York said, is the main reason Rockstar releases PC versions of its games after the console versions, and why GTA 6 is set to follow the pattern.
“This is very important for everybody to remember: one of the main reasons why a PC port will take so long is because it’s different architecture and different components,” York said.
“They have to accommodate for all these different things that can happen. Because on a PlayStation and an Xbox, each one of those has one graphics card, and it’s the same graphics card, it’s the same architecture inside the box as every single PlayStation that’s shipped to millions of people. But when it comes to a PC, every single person has a different PC. They’re running it differently. They have different hardware in there. They have different CPUs and GPUs. The memory usage and the different things the game is doing in the background can sometimes hit a fail and mess up during different configurations. It’s hard to explain, but that’s what it boils down to.
“They need to test the game more on PC than they would on Xbox or PlayStation. If you think about it, you already have to test the game a ton in order to get it to work. So a PC is even harder. You got to throw more resources at it. You have to test things a lot more. And when you’re doing the PC port you have to test things on multiple different hardwares, different GPUs. Not just one or two, but 10 or 20. There’s so many different configurations out there that you’ll just never be able to test them all. And there’s a lot of things that can go wrong once you release that PC port, because it just hasn’t been tested by millions of people. It’s only been tested by a thousand people at work. So you can only take it so far.”
York pointed to the backlash against the 2015 PC port of Batman: Arkham Knight as a warning sign for what can happen if a PC version of a complex game isn’t given enough time in the oven. “If it was tested more against different configurations it would have made it out okay and unscathed,” York insisted.
“A lot of times people are so antsy for the PC port, they want it right now,” York continued. “It’s hard to do that as a developer because the team isn’t big enough. If they had a huge team, if they had just one team working on the PC, one team working on the Xbox, and the whole time they’d be trying to optimise all three at the same time, but it just doesn’t work that way. We don’t have the money, we don’t have the resources, we don’t have the manpower. So we prioritise what’s best for the company’s money, right? What’s going to sell best? Well, most likely it’s the PlayStation. So let’s put all our energy into the PlayStation, and then the Xbox, and then the PC.”
There will no doubt be a number of counter arguments in response to York’s video, chief among them the vast resources available to Rockstar compared to many other developers who build and release PC ports of their complex open world games. And yes, there will be plenty who say this decision is about nothing more than Rockstar’s push for the double-dip two years after the big console launch. Again, IGN has asked Rockstar for comment, but it has yet to respond.
Whatever the case, York called on PC gamers to give Rockstar the “benefit of the doubt”, and not send angry messages to staff about the GTA 6 launch plans.
“I heard one guy say, ‘it’s not rocket science.’ But it might be harder than rocket science in some situations. Like, literally,” York said. “This stuff is very complicated, with the coding and the different things you have to do in order to get it to work properly, and all the testing you have to do.
“So, don’t get mad at the developers or come at them and be upset. Just try to give them the benefit of the doubt. Try to give them the time to hopefully deliver these ports. Go in the comment sections on these and say hey, it’s okay guys, take your time. Take your time! Let the developers know it’s okay to take their time so they can deliver the best game they can to you.”
The GTA 6 trailer was awaited with bated breath from the gaming industry and finally arrived with plenty of classic Rockstar satire. The 90-second trailer featured a ton of intricate details (here are 99 things IGN spotted) and plenty of references to wild and wacky real life events too. It also showed off GTA 6's dual protagonists, Jason and Lucia, and the internet has already grown obsessed over the latter. The GTA 6 trailer has already surpassed predecessor Grand Theft Auto 5's reveal trailer's views, reaching 101 million views in less than two days. It’s now the most-viewed video game reveal on YouTube over a 24 hour period, and the most viewed non-music video on YouTube in 24 hours.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
